News
International News 11 February 2010 - Oil crunch 'just five years away' By Shanaz Musafer, BBC News Business leaders, including Sir Richard Branson, have criticised ministers for not doing enough to avoid a potential oil crunch and are calling on the next government to take action. "Governments need to urgently, urgently wake up," insists Sir Richard in an interview with the BBC News. His Virgin Group is one of six companies (including engineering group Arup, architects Foster and Partners, Scottish and Southern Energy, Solar Century and Stagecoach) that have formed a coalition called the UK Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security. "The days of cheap and easy oil in the quantities that the world needs it are over," warns Ian Marchant, chief executive of Scottish and Southern Energy.(more...) January 2010 - Meals per gallon: The impact of industrial biofuels on people and global hunger by Tim Rice, ActionAid, UK Industrial biofuels are currently made from maize, wheat, sugar cane and oil seeds such as palm oil, soy and rapeseed. The rapidly rising demand for crops for fuel has put them into competition with those grown for food, driving food prices higher and affecting what and how much people eat in developing countries. This is a significant issue in a world where a billion people are already going hungry. For instance, just to meet the EU 10% target, the total land area directly required to grow industrial biofuels in developing countries could reach 17.5 million hectares, well over half the size of Italy. Additional land will also be required in developed nations, displacing food and animal feed crops onto land in new areas, often in developing countries. (see full report...) 12 January 2010 - Revive the carbon tax By Paul Ekins, Ottawa Citizen Special At the recent Copenhagen summit, Canada resisted aggressive targets for tackling climate change. Underlying the Canadian government's position was a view that significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions will cost too much: that protecting the environment means sacrificing the economy. Most economists, and a growing number of businesses, now realize this view is not just outdated, but wrong. Yes, addressing climate change and other environmental problems will involve costs, but the costs of not mitigating climate change are much, much more. And, with the right approach, climate policy can create new opportunities and position countries to compete effectively in the low-carbon economy of the future. (more...) 21 December 2009 - What if they held a Climate Summit, and nobody came? by Rob Hopkins, Transition Network The gathering of the environmental/climate change movement in the Klimaforum with its dedicated bringing together of green luminaries and activists failed to have any meaningful impact on the proceedings, as did the mass street protests, designed to shame delegates into meaningful action and to draw a line in the sand. In short, the responses that the alternative movement/protest culture/social justice movement usually rolls into action when such events take place, didn’t work. So, might we do things differently next time? It is, after all, what is expected. Activists and experts all head to the venue, with huge carbon implications, in the hope that this is “the one”, new police powers get passed, activists are subject to harassment and intimidating policing (George Marshall's piece on his Copenhagen experience is well worth a read, especially for his despair at the amount of polar bear costumes on display), the media can run its “climate change demonstrations turned ugly today” stories to divert interest away from the lack of progress, in the fringe event people inspire and challenge each other, and in the main talks, most representatives arrive, as one does at any auction, with their preferred bids and the extra they will offer if pushed already worked out long in advance. (more...) 19 December 2009 - How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room As recriminations fly post-Copenhagen, one writer offers a fly-on-the-wall account of how talks failed by Mark Lynas, The Guardian Copenhagen was a disaster. That much is agreed. But the truth about what actually happened is in danger of being lost amid the spin and inevitable mutual recriminations. The truth is this: China wrecked the talks, intentionally humiliated Barack Obama, and insisted on an awful "deal" so western leaders would walk away carrying the blame. How do I know this? Because I was in the room and saw it happen. (more...) 28 November 2009 - From Climategate to Copenhagen Will hacked e-mails cast a chill on the UN's environment summit? Richard Foot rises above the hot air and heated debate to consider the long-term repercussions of the controversy. by Richard Foot, Canwest News Service .. a computer hacker has stolen hundreds of e-mails and other documents from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in Britain -- an influential centre of climate change study -- and posted the material on the Internet, only weeks before world leaders gather in Copenhagen on Dec. 7 to hash out a new global strategy on carbon emissions. The e-mail exchanges, between a group of powerful, like-minded scientists based in Britain and the U.S., written during the past 13 years, suggest they may have rigged their data, suppressed contrary information and conspired to control what should be an independent peer review process surrounding the publication of their scientific papers. It's partly the work of these scientists -- whose computer modelling research has formed the basis of reports published by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) -- that now compels many countries to write new laws on carbon emissions limits. But Diane Katz of the Fraser Institute, says the hacked e-mail exchanges prove'' the IPCC, and governments everywhere, have been seriously misled''... (more..) 20 November 2009 - The Urgent Threat to World Peace is - Canada The harm this country could do in the next two weeks will outweigh all the good it has done in a century. By George Monbiot. The Guardian, UK Until now I believed that the nation which has done most to sabotage a new climate change agreement was the United States. I was wrong. The real villain is Canada. Unless we can stop it, the harm done by Canada in December 2009 will outweigh a century of good works. Canada is slipping down the development ladder, retreating from a complex, diverse economy towards dependence on a single primary resource, which happens to be the dirtiest commodity known to man. In 2006 the new Canadian government announced that it was abandoning its targets to cut greenhouse gases under the Kyoto Protocol. No other country that had ratified the treaty has done this. US did not ratify Kyoto before withdrawing. Canada was meant to have cut emissions by 6% between 1990 and 2012. Instead they have already risen by 26% (see below). It’s now clear that Canada will refuse to be sanctioned for abandoning its legal obligations. The Kyoto Protocol can be enforced only through goodwill: countries must agree to accept punitive future obligations if they miss their current targets. But the future cut Canada has volunteered is smaller than that of any other rich nation. Never mind special measures; it won’t accept even an equal share. The Canadian government is testing the international process to destruction and finding that it breaks all too easily. By demonstrating that climate sanctions aren’t worth the paper they’re written on, it threatens to render any treaty struck at Copenhagen void. (more...) 18 November 2009 - World on course for catastrophic 6° rise, reveal scientists Fast-rising carbon emissions mean that worst-case predictions for climate change are coming true By Steve Connor and Michael McCarthy, The Independent The world is now firmly on course for the worst-case scenario in terms of climate change, with average global temperatures rising by up to 6C by the end of the century, leading scientists said yesterday. Such a rise – which would be much higher nearer the poles – would have cataclysmic and irreversible consequences for the Earth, making large parts of the planet uninhabitable and threatening the basis of human civilisation. We are headed for it, the scientists said, because the carbon dioxide emissions from industry, transport and deforestation which are responsible for warming the atmosphere have increased dramatically since 2002, in a way which no one anticipated, and are now running at treble the annual rate of the 1990s. This means that the most extreme scenario envisaged in the last report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, published in 2007, is now the one for which society is set, according to the 31 researchers from seven countries involved in the Global Carbon Project. (more...) For more information on the impact of a six degree warming see the article What will climate change do to our planet? 16 November 2009 - The one thing depleting faster than oil is the credibility of those measuring it by George Monbiot, The Guardian, UK I don't know when global oil supplies will start to decline. I do know that another resource has already peaked and gone into free fall: the credibility of the body IEA that's meant to assess them...The agency's assessment of the state of global oil supplies is beginning to look as reliable as Alan Greenspan's blandishments about the health of the financial markets. But nothing the whistle-blowers said has scared me as much as the conversation I had last week with a Pembrokeshire farmer. Wyn Evans, who runs a mixed farm of 170 acres, has been trying to reduce his dependency on fossil fuels since 1977. He has installed an anaerobic digester, a wind turbine, solar panels and a ground-sourced heat pump. He has sought wherever possible to replace diesel with his own electricity. Instead of using his tractor to spread slurry, he pumps it from the digester on to nearby fields. He's replaced his tractor-driven irrigation system with an electric one, and set up a new system for drying hay indoors, which means he has to turn it in the field only once. Whatever else he does is likely to produce smaller savings. But these innovations have reduced his use of diesel by only around 25%. According to farm scientists at Cornell University, cultivating one hectare of maize in the United States requires 40 litres of petrol and 75 litres of diesel. The amazing productivity of modern farm labour has been purchased at the cost of a dependency on oil. Unless farmers can change the way it's grown, a permanent oil shock would price food out of the mouths of many of the world's people. Any responsible government would be asking urgent questions about how long we have got. The world economy is probably knackered, whatever we might do now. But at least we could save farming. There are two possible options: either the mass replacement of farm machinery or the development of new farming systems that don't need much labour or energy. (more...) 12 November 2009 - Oil: future world shortages are being drastically underplayed, say experts by Terry Macalister, The Guardian, UK Uppsala University in Sweden today published a scathing assessment of the IEA's annual World Energy Outlook, saying some assumptions drastically underplayed the scale of future oil shortages. Kjell Aleklett, professor of physics at Uppsala and co-author of a new report "The Peak of the Oil Age", claims oil production is more likely to be 75m barrels a day by 2030 than the "unrealistic" 105m used by the IEA in its recently published World Energy Outlook 2009. The academic, who runs a Global Energy unit at Uppsala, described the IEA's report as a "political document" developed for consuming countries with a vested interest in low prices. The report from Aleklett and others, including Simon Snowden from the University of Liverpool, says: "We find the production outlook made by the IEA to be problematic in the light of historical experience and production patterns. The IEA is expecting the oil to be extracted at a pace never previously seen without any justification for this assumption." (more...) 9 November 2009 - Key oil figures were distorted by US pressure, says whistleblower by Terry Macalister, The Guardian The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency (IEA) who claims it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying. The senior official claims the US has played an influential role in encouraging the watchdog to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the chances of finding new reserves. (That rate of decline averaged 6.7% according to a report by the IEA, see story below 3 August 2009.) The current allegations raise serious questions about the accuracy of the organisation's latest World Energy Outlook on oil demand and supply to be published tomorrow – which is used by the British and many other governments to help guide their wider energy and climate change policies. A report last month by the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC)said worldwide production of conventionally extracted oil could "peak" and go into terminal decline before 2020 – but that the government was not facing up to the risk. Steve Sorrell, chief author of the report, said forecasts suggesting oil production will not peak before 2030 were "at best optimistic and at worst implausible". But as far back as 2004 there have been people making similar warnings. Colin Campbell, a former executive with Total of France told a conference: "If the real reserve figures were to come out there would be panic on the stock markets..." (more...) 16 October 2009 - The Arctic and the end of the world Exclusive Excerpt By Michael Byers, Who Owns the Arctic?: Understanding Sovereignty Disputes in the North in The Ottawa Citizen ...Climate change presents the ultimate collective action problem, what Garrett Hardin famously termed "the tragedy of the commons." With hundreds of governments, thousands of stateless transnational corporations and billions of consumers embroiled in a fossil fuel-based economy, opportunities abound for pursuing one's own gain at the expense of the common good. This makes stabilizing the atmosphere the most improbable co-operative exercise ever attempted by humankind. Yet there is no Plan B, no alternative planet to which we can collectively decamp. We simply have to co-operate. Seen from this perspective, Canada's Arctic policies take on global importance. In addition to its domestic responsibility to provide good government within our national boundaries, the Canadian government has a broader, over-arching responsibility to pursue every opportunity for international co-operation. That's the only way to save all that we value, including right here at home. (more...) 15 October 2009 - See the world like Elinor Ostrom By Will Wilkinson, The Ottawa Citizen This week Elinor Ostrom, a 76-year-old professor of political science at the University of Indiana, and the first woman to win the economics Nobel, together with Oliver Williamson of the University of California, Berkeley, were awarded the Nobel memorial prize in economics. "Much of Ostrom’s work can be seen as a comprehensive response to a famous paper by the ecologist Garrett Hardin on the so-called 'tragedy of the commons'. "Imagine a pond considered community property. There’s only so many fish in the pond. Each fish taken from the common pool leaves one less for others and everyone knows it. Absent a set of rules governing fishing, the individual’s best fish-getting strategy is to race to the pond and take as many fish as possible before the others have taken them all. In the myopic rush to get something now, individuals use up the commons, tragically depriving everyone of its fruits thereafter. "Hardin argued that tragedies of the commons may be avoided only if we turn either to privatization or, more likely, top-down government regulation. Ostrom has proved that this is a false choice... “Many policy analysts presume that without major external resources and top down planning by national officials, there can be no provision of public goods and sustainable common-pool resources,” Ostrom has written. “This presumption is wrong.” " "To see the world more like Elinor Ostrom is to see humans and their communities as a natural part of the natural order, not as invading aliens essentially at odds with their environment or one another. Ostrom has emphasized none of us would be here today had our ancestors failed to work together to find ways to align individual interest with public interest." (more...) 13 October, 2009 - Saudis Seek Payments for Any Drop in Oil Revenues By Jad Mouawad and Andrew C. Revkin, New York Times Saudi Arabia is trying to enlist other oil-producing countries to support a provocative idea: if wealthy countries reduce their oil consumption to combat global warming, they should pay compensation to oil producers. The oil-rich kingdom has pushed this position for years in earlier climate-treaty negotiations. While it has not succeeded, its efforts have sometimes delayed or disrupted discussions. The kingdom is once again gearing up to take a hard line on the issue at international negotiations scheduled for Copenhagen in December. “It is like the tobacco industry asking for compensation for lost revenues as a part of a settlement to address the health risks of smoking,” said Jake Schmidt, the international climate policy director at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “The worst of this racket is that they have held up progress on supporting adaptation funding for the most vulnerable for years because of this demand.” Saudi Arabia is highly dependent on oil exports, which account for most of the government’s budget. Last year, when prices peaked, the kingdom’s oil revenue swelled by 37 percent, to $281 billion, according to Jadwa Investment, a Saudi bank but are expected to drop to $115 billion this year, after oil prices fell. But with oil projected to average $100 a barrel 2008-2030, the energy agency estimated that OPEC members would still earn $23 trillion over that period. With oil prices more likely to push $200 a barrel during that period, according to some peak oil experts, Saudia Arabia's claim seems more like outright extortion. (more...) 5 October 2009 - China leads accusation that rich nations are trying to sabotage climate treaty By John Vidal, The Guardian An angry statement from 131 countries at climate talks in Bangkok claims rich nations are rejecting historical responsibilities. The US and other developed countries are attempting to "fundamentally sabotage" the Kyoto protocol and all-important international negotiations over its next phase, according to coordinated statements by China and 130 developing countries at UN climate talks in Bangkok today . "The reason why we are not making progress is the lack of political will by Annex 1 industrialised countries. There is a concerted effort to fundamentally sabotage the Kyoto protocol," said ambassador Yu Qingtai China's special representative on climate talks. "We now hear statements that would lead to the termination of the protocol. They are introducing new rules, new formats. That's not the way to conduct negotiations," said Yu. (more...) 5 October 2009 - Hunger for biofuels will gobble up wheat surplus By Robin Pagnament, The Times, London Britain’s self-sufficiency in wheat will end next year, because a giant new biofuel refinery needs so much of the staple crop that home-grown supplies will be exhausted feeding both the factory and the nation. The £300 million plant at Wilton, on Teesside, which is due to open this autumn, will be the largest bioethanol refinery in Europe and will consume a tenth of the country’s annual harvest, more than the national surplus. Although the Ensus-built refinery expects to source all its wheat from the UK, the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) said that so much grain would be required that Britain could become a net importer of the crop for the first time in its history. Wilton will require 1.2 million tonnes of the crop to produce 450 million litres of wheat-based biofuels. Built with capital supplied by Carlyle Group and Riverstone Holdings, the American private equity companies, it will supply Shell with the renewable fuel for use in cars and lorries in Britain. (more...) 5 October 2009 - Peak Oil: The End Of the Oil Age is Near, Deutsche Bank Says By Keith Johnson, Wall Street Journal Here’s an intriguing thought: Global oil supplies are indeed set to peak within a few years, and no, that is not bullish for oil. Quite the contrary—it will spell the end of the “oil age.” That’s the take from Deutsche Bank’s new report, “The Peak Oil Market.” In a nutshell: The oil industry chronically under invests in finding new supplies, exemplified both by Big Oil’s recent love of share buybacks and under-investment by big oil-producing nations. That spells a looming supply crunch. That will send oil to $175 a barrel by 2016—and will simultaneously put the final nail in oil’s coffin and send prices plummeting back to $70 by 2030. That’s because there’s an even more important “peak” moment on the horizon: A global peak in oil demand. That has already begun in the world’s biggest oil-consuming nation, Deutsche Bank notes: "US demand is the key. It is the last market-priced, oil inefficient, major oil consumer. We believe Obama’s environmental agenda, the bankruptcy of the US auto industry, the war in Iraq, and global oil supply challenges have dovetailed to spell the end of the oil era." The big driver? The coming-of-age of electric and hybrid vehicles, which promise massive fuel-economy gains for short-hop commuting but which so far have not been economic. Deutsche Bank expects the electric car to become a truly “disruptive technology” which takes off around the world, sending demand for gasoline into an “inexorable and accelerating decline.” (more...) 2 October 2009 - Exxon CEO: We've Passed The Peak Of US Gasoline Consumption by Vincent Fernando, The Business Insider U.S. gasoline consumption has already passed its peak of 20 million barrels per day in 2007, according to Exxon (XOM) CEO Rex Tillerson. Due to the blending of biofuels and development of electric cars, he expects nothing but a downtrend in oil product demand towards 17 million barrels a day by 2020. For oil prices, developing nations are thus the long-term demand driver going forward. Luckily, they're doing a good job at consuming like crazy already.(more...) 29 September 2009 - US firms quit Chamber of Commerce over climate change position by Andrew, The Guardian.co.uk Nike and Johnson & Johnson are among the corporations criticising the largest business organisation in the US over Chamber's resistance to 'cap-and-trade' legislation. The largest American business federation, the US Chamber of Commerce, has suffered a rash of high-profile walkouts as multinational companies become uncomfortable with the organisation's hard-line opposition to measures tackling climate change. In a sign of mounting acceptance in the business community of a need for action on carbon emissions, big names including the sportswear manufacturer Nike and the household products empire Johnson & Johnson have attacked the chamber for its refusal to back "cap-and-trade" legislation supported by the Obama administration. This week, the largest US nuclear power generator, Exelon, resigned from the chamber over its environmental policy, following two fellow utilities, Pacific Gas & Electric and PNM Resources. (more...) 11 September 2009 - Total Says 2014/2015 Hydrocarbon Demand Could Outstrip Supply By Tara Patel, Bloomberg Radio Total SA Chief Executive Officer Christophe de Margerie said there could be a new oil crisis when demand for oil and natural gas outstrips supply around 2014 or 2015, Le Parisien reported, citing an interview. He said oil prices could rise above last year’s record as demand rises and that the company won’t pull out of Myanmar, the newspaper reported.(more...) 9 September 2009 - The Stonewalling of Peak Oil: An Interview with Robert Hirsch on the deliberate avoidance by the U.S. government to talk about peak oil By Steve Andrews, EV World "The peak oil story is definitely a bad news story. There's just no way to sugar-coat it, other than maybe to do what I've done on occasion and that is to say that by 2050 we'll have it right and we will have come through the peak oil recession—quite probably a very deep recession. At some point we'll come out of this because we're human beings, and we just don't give up. And I have faith in people ultimately. But it's a bad news story and anybody's who's going to stand up and talk about the bad news story and is in a position of responsibility in the government needs to then follow immediately and say “here's what we're going to do about it,” and no one seems prepared to do that. Peak oil is a bigger issue than health care, than federal budget deficits, and so forth. We're talking about something that, to take a middle of the road position—not the Armageddon extreme and not the la-la optimism of some people—is going to be extremely damaging to the U.S. and world economies for a very long period of time. There are no quick fixes." (more...) 8 September 2009 - Debate about peak oil is misleading By David Robertson, in Emirates 24/7 Despite the rather pessimistic view generated by the concept of peak oil, new fields are being discovered all the time. In the past couple of weeks alone we have had a 8.8 billion barrel discovery announced at the Soussangerd field in Iran and BP revealed a 5 billion- barrel find at the Tiber field in the Gulf of Mexico. However, before we get complacent and rush out to swap the Toyota Prius for a thirsty Land Rover, none of this new development is going to be easy to exploit. The days of oil bubbling out of the ground, as it used to do in Saudi and Bahrain, are long gone and the new fields are often extremely hard to tap. Take the BP find in the Gulf of Mexico. Its drill hole is a staggering 10,685 metres deep – this is nearly two kilometres more than the height of Mount Everest. The well is also in deep water, which will make it much more expensive to construct a drilling platform and pipeline to shore. The debate about peak oil is, therefore, misleading. We are not about to run out of oil any time soon, but we are going to have to pay a great deal more to get it out of the ground. We should be focussing on cost of production rather than some mythical tipping point at which we start to run out of oil. (more...) 4 September 2009 - Sweet dreams are made of geoengineering By Gerard Wynn, Reuters Farming plankton, sending solar panels into orbit, remodelling hydrogen -- for the latest wave of entrepreneurs suggesting easier ways out of climate change, it's all in a day's pitching. Some plans seek radical alternatives to fossil fuels. Other businesses are dreaming of geoengineering -- planning to tweak the earth's climate by removing heat-trapping carbon dioxide (CO2) or reflecting sunlight into space. (more...) Among new energy fixes presented to Reuters in recent days is from U.S.-based BlackLight Power. The company says it may have tapped the energy that cosmologists have struggled to explain, called dark matter, which fills the universe. The concept involves shifting electrons in hydrogen molecules -- obtained cheaply from water -- into a lower orbit, releasing energy in the process. "It represents a boundless form of new primary energy," Randell Mills, founder and chief executive, told Reuters in a telephone interview. "I think it's going to replace all forms of fuel in the world." 3 September 2009 - BP makes 'giant' find in Gulf of Mexico by Tom Bergin, Calgary Herald In this story oil major BP PLC said it has made a 'giant' oil discovery in the Gulf of Mexico one that analysts believe could contain more than one billion barrels of recoverable reserves, reaffirming the Gulf's strategic importance to the industry. Rig contractor Transocean Ltd. said the Tiber well was the oil and gas industry's deepest, at 10,683 metres in 1,260 metres of water. However, a billion barrels of oil represents only 1/30th of the world's annual consumption and extracting it from more than 10 kilometers below the surface of the hurricane prone Gulf of Mexico will be challenging. (more...) 2 September 2009 - Food Aid Grows in California's Agricultural Heart By Jim Carlton, Wall Street Journal SELMA, Calif. -- The combined punch of drought, water restrictions and recession has created an ironic situation in California's Central Valley: Officials are handing out tons of food in the heart of one of the nation's most productive agricultural regions. Feeding the farmers is a potent image that demands change in our unbalanced food system. (more...) 14 August 2009 - Open Letter to Her Majesty the Queen Last year while touring the London School of Economics Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth famously inquired “Why did no one see it financial crisis and ensuing recession coming?” In response the British Academy suggested in an open letter in July that the cause was due to a failure of bankers and governments to appreciate the risks building up in financial markets. Last week another group of experts suggested in a second open letter that the first group was in a state of denial about the broader context in which the crisis arose."The key to addressing our current situation is to recognise the far more serious imbalances between our insatiable hunger for energy, its finite nature and the environmental pollution in its use.” They referred to an article recently published in the New York Times by Thomas Freidman who said, "Let’s today step out of the normal boundaries of analysis of our economic crisis and ask a radical question: What if the crisis of 2008 represents something much more fundamental than a deep recession? What if it's telling us that the whole growth model we created over the last 50 years is simply unsustainable economically and ecologically and that 2008 was when we hit the wall — when Mother Nature and the market both said: 'No more'." "Thankfully", they said, "there is a vibrant debate in civil society on these issues. Groups like Transition Towns, described by Jeremy Leggett as 'scalable microcosms of hope', and digital democracy Moveon.org, Getup.org, Dosomethingaboutit.org.uk, Localeyes.org and 38degrees.org.uk are giving individual citizens and collectives a new voice and real power in politics of change. 12 August 2009 - Peak oil hits third world By Chris Nelder, in Yesterday's Future The actual feeling of peak oil didn't really hit me until this week, as I perused a page on Jim Kingsdale's excellent Energy Investment Strategies site, listing countries that are currently experiencing serious fuel shortages and grid blackouts. Here in the first world, we still have the luxury of armchair theorizing about peak oil, and paying a bit more for gasoline, but the third world is actually feeling the pain of peak oil today. Rising oil prices are acting as a regressive worldwide tax, pricing poorer countries right out of the market. The experiences of Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, China, India, Nigeria and Argentina to name a few places are to some extent heralding ours as the peak sets in... Claude Mandil, the head of the International Energy Agency, warned recently of a "catastrophe" for the world's poorest countries as they are forced into the suicidal practice of subsidizing oil just to keep their economies running.(more...) 9 August 2009 - Economic outlook: Oil prices cloud recovery hopes By Chris Flood, The Financial Times The nascent recovery in global economic activity could yet be derailed by rising oil prices, with Brent crude hitting $76 a barrel last week, its highest levels of the year to date. In a blunt warning last week, Goldman Sachs called for a co-ordinated policy response to resolve the problems of commodity shortages, noting: “Although the financial crisis had been addressed, the commodity crisis has not.” Francisco Blanch, commodity strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, says that just as the rise in oil prices last year was an under-appreciated cause of the recession, this year’s collapse for crude prices has been an under-appreciated source of stimulus. “If oil prices go up, the choice for central banks will be to throw economies the developed world back into recession or to let headline inflation trend higher,” warns Mr Blanch. (more...) 3 August 2009 - Warning: Oil supplies are running out fast Catastrophic shortfalls threaten economic recovery, says world's top energy economist By Steve Connor, Science Editor, The Independent The world is heading for a catastrophic energy crunch that could cripple a global economic recovery because most of the major oil fields in the world have passed their peak production, a leading energy economist has warned. Higher oil prices brought on by a rapid increase in demand and a stagnation, or even decline, in supply could blow any recovery off course, said Dr Fatih Birol, the chief economist at the respected International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris, which is charged with the task of assessing future energy supplies by OECD countries. In an interview with The Independent, Dr Birol said that the public and many governments appeared to be oblivious to the fact that the oil on which modern civilisation depends is running out far faster than previously predicted (6.7% decline) and that global production is likely to peak in about 10 years – at least a decade earlier than most governments had estimated. By 2030 that decline would amount to a reduction of 75% of existing oil production capacity. In the first detailed assessment of more than 800 oil fields in the world, covering three quarters of global reserves, the IEA has found that most of the biggest fields have already peaked and that the rate of decline in oil production is now running at nearly twice the pace as calculated just two years ago. On top of this, there is a problem of chronic under-investment by oil-producing countries, a feature that is set to result in an "oil crunch" within the next five years which will jeopardise any hope of a recovery from the present global economic recession, he said. (more...) 25 June 2009 - French wake-up call to Canada and the US The French government has come up with a paper, outlining a ”fair and ambitious agreement” in Copenhagen. In particular, the document lashes out at Canada and the US. Canada and the United States have to raise their level of ambition, a French government paper seen by Reuters says. Otherwise, it will be difficult for rich nations to meet the 25-40 percent reduction in greenhouse gases recommended by a UN climate panel in order to prevent dangerous effects of climate change. (more...) 7 March 2009 - The Inflection is Near by THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, New York Times "We have created a system for growth that depended on our building more and more stores to sell more and more stuff made in more and more factories in China, powered by more and more coal that would cause more and more climate change but earn China more and more dollars to buy more and more U.S. T-bills so America would have more and more money to build more and more stores and sell more and more stuff that would employ more and more Chinese ... We can’t do this anymore". (more...) 10 July 2008 - A British town's attempt to kick the oil habit By Nancy Durham, CBC News (link to CBC News video) Two years ago, British teacher and permaculturist Rob Hopkins (see site video) came up with a plan. He wanted to help communities prepare for the eventuality of a world without oil. That's how the concept of Transition Towns was born. The key to his initiative is sustainability at the local level — whether it's to do with food, transport, building materials or energy resources. Hopkins believes success in those areas will make a town more independent and resilient and prepare it for the day when the tap is turned off and there is no food delivery because the trucks are running on empty. Totnes, in Devon county in England's southwest, is the world's first Transition Town. It has long been known as a "laboratory town" — willing to experiment with unconventional lifestyles... Rather than focusing on the hardship of life after oil, Hopkins says he sees "the potential for an economic social and cultural renaissance the likes of which we've never seen before". (more...) 8 October 2008 - Farmer-in Chief An open letter to the President-Elect by Michael Pollan, NY Times It may surprise you to learn that among the issues that will occupy much of your time in the coming years is one you barely mentioned during the campaign: food. Food policy is not something American presidents have had to give much thought to, at least since the Nixon administration — the last time high food prices presented a serious political peril. Since then, federal policies to promote maximum production of the commodity crops (corn, soybeans, wheat and rice) from which most of our supermarket foods are derived have succeeded impressively in keeping prices low and food more or less off the national political agenda. But with a suddenness that has taken us all by surprise, the era of cheap and abundant food appears to be drawing to a close. What this means is that you, like so many other leaders through history, will find yourself confronting the fact — so easy to overlook these past few years — that the health of a nation’s food system is a critical issue of national security. Food is about to demand your attention. (more...) Canadian News 7 October 2009 - Real ways to save the world. A special report on sustainability You can’t argue with the logic of sustainability. It makes perfect sense—if we want humanity to last, we need to start saving the planet now. So why has progress been so slow? Why are people still driving SUVs instead of hybrids? Why aren’t homeowners lining up to install solar panels on their rooftops? Why don’t they ? The truth is, when we implore people to adopt sustainable practices, what we’re really suggesting is that they voluntarily lower their standard of living now for the sake of future generations they will likely never know. It’s a lot to ask. If we want consumer behaviour to change quickly, we need to offer some short-term rewards, and consequences. In this special report, Macleans magazine examines ways to do that. For starters, we should stop government subsidies that actively encourage people to waste resources. If something is cheap, we waste it—so why do governments insist on policies that keep prices low for water, electricity and food? (more...) 26 September 2009 - Canada, the Laggard Editorial, The Ottawa Citizen This country risks becoming an international pariah with an obsolete economy. Reducing emissions is difficult, but not impossible. Other industrialized countries have managed to maintain or reduce their emissions levels, while Canada's have steadily risen despite our Kyoto commitments. In a meeting this week with the Citizen's editorial board, former Indian environment minister Suresh P. Prabhu expressed polite dismay at Canada's performance. How is it possible, he asked, that a wealthy country, a technologically advanced country, has so spectacularly failed to innovate? Yes, Canada's vast distances and cold climate make transportation and heating a challenge. But our natural resources, and even our sheer size, make energy diversity possible. We've got plenty of room for geothermal, biomass, wind, solar, low-impact hydro, nuclear -- you name it, Canada can do it. Canada just chooses not to. (more...) 25 September 2009 - Proponents see red over green plan by Lee Greenberg, The Ottawa Citizen The tricky business of going green in Ontario just got more complex on Thursday as the McGuinty government introduced a mandatory 'Buy Ontario' component for new solar and wind projects. The changes were part of a bundle of key policies designed to spark home-grown green manufacturing, as well as the wide deployment of its products -- everything from small, rooftop solar panels to industrial-sized wind farms. But in trying to strike a balance between competing interests, the Liberals appear to have rattled all sides in the debate. "The back and forth here is remarkable," said York University professor Mark Winfield, who teaches environmental studies. "It's almost erratic." (more...) Some quick facts on Ontario's Green Energy Act : *The Green Energy and Green Economy Act was introduced into the Ontario Legislature on Feb. 23, 2009. *Over 50,000 jobs in the next three years are expected to result from implementation of the Green Energy Act. *Canada’s two largest wind farms are located in Ontario and by the end of 2009, nearly 1,200 megawatts of wind capacity will be on-line, enough to power almost 325,000 homes. *Investments in new renewable energy projects already in place or under construction in Ontario total about $4 billion. *The Green Energy Act is designed to build on the government’s earlier initiatives on the province’s power supply, including a plan to eliminate coal-fired power by 2014, the single largest climate change initiative in Canada. For more information Ontario's Green Energy Act 25 July 2009 - Apocalypse Soon By Mike Blanchfield, Canwest News Service Flooding. Drought. Wildfires. Mass migrations of desperate people. Mike Blanchfield explains why security experts fear climate change will lead to war on a scale we have yet to see on this planet ... Climate change has been linked to predictions of massive flooding, droughts, population explosions and massive migrations of uprooted and desperate people facing life-threatening food and water shortages."Climate security" is a phrase that is now being heard well beyond the war rooms of the West.The trepidation is that these threats will fuel a drive for war on a scale we have yet to see on this planet, bringing tension to stable parts of the world, making the tense places worse... Here in Canada, the connection between climate change and global instability is not discussed publicly. No one seems to know why. (more...) 3 July 2009 - The time to deal with climate change is now By Ed Miliband, special to The Ottawa Citizen A make-or-break moment for our planet is now only six months away. In Copenhagen this December, the world will try to find a deal on climate change -- and we have to succeed. Whether we do so cannot be left until the winter, and cannot be left to politicians alone. As part of our contribution and to open up debate, the British government is publishing our position for what the deal should include. Ed Miliband is the British secretary of state for energy and climate change. (more...) 1 June 2009 - Energy shock and oil myths Macleans, by Colin Campbell Jeff Rubin was, for years, a lonely voice among economists when it came to predicting the price of oil. In 2007—when crude began the year at a relatively modest $50 a barrel—Rubin, then the chief economist at CIBC, all but staked his reputation on a prediction that oil was about to hit triple-digit prices and never look back. In his reports, speeches and even addresses to skeptical oil executives, he preached the end of the era of cheap fossil fuels. “The bottom line is, we’re in the bottom of the ninth inning of the hydrocarbon age,” he declared... (more...) 30 April 2009 - Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions soaring Canada represents one of the fastest rates of growth in greenhouse gas emissions in the developed world. In 2007, emissions were 26 percent above the 1990 levels. Now Canada aims to end traditional coal power in the future. (more...) 3 April 2008 - Peak oil By Eve Savory, CBC News The authors of , Richard Gilbert and Anthony Perl, tell CBC news correspondent Eve Savory they foresee radical social and political changes as the world's oil supply dwindles. If one accepts that climate change could be catastrophic for many ecosystems, including the multiple ones humans inhabit, what could possibly be considered more critical, more demanding of our full attention, ? The mother of all asteroids intersecting with our planet's orbit? All-out nuclear war? Aliens? Well, try peak oil (put simply, the point at which the rate of global oil production begins to decline). Peak oil has "the imperative of urgency," according to Richard Gilbert, an urban-issues consultant based in Toronto. "The likely outcome of not dealing with this issue is not an environmental catastrophe. It's an economic and social catastrophe that may leave us unable to deal with the environmental catastrophe," he said in an interview. (more...) 9 February 2006 - When the oil runs out Macleans, by Jonathon Gatehouse Are we heading for the end of civilization -- or are the warnings of a coming apocalypse just another case of Chicken Little? The Four Horsemen have upgraded to SUVs. Not the hybrid ones either, but those gas-guzzling, bunny-crushing behemoths that Arnold Schwarzenegger favours. In oil-rich Babylon, whores are so thick on the ground that it's a little hard to pick just one. Although everyone can agree on what the Antichrist is up to -- running a multinational petroleum company. Yes, the End is nigh, if you believe the consensus that has been brewing in the halls of academe and the non-fiction aisle at the local bookstore. Starting in 2010, no later than 2020 or 2030, according to the latest vision of secular apocalypse, global oil supplies will peak, and the world will begin to unravel at the seams… (more…) Ottawa News 27 March 2010 - Press the rail reset button By Ken Gray, The Ottawa Citizen Ottawa Citizen City editor Ken Gray suggests an alternative to the City's light rail plan. He begins by saying the planning paradigm needs to be turned upside down: if the idea is to get people onto trains and out of cars why should planners be upset if the train gets in the way of cars. Therefore a costly tunnel is unnecessary. Further he suggests doing the north south line first since the environmental assessment is already done and then adding additional easy-west lines as money is available using existing right of ways along bus and train routes and where people are. (more...) 23 November 2009 - Ottawa in the year 2050: Architects, designers share their vision of Canada’s capital By Mohammed Adam, The Ottawa Citizen Here's a few of their visions of the future: *at least three new bridges spanning the Ottawa River, one exclusively for trucks *King Edward Avenue expanded to be a six-lane, tree-lined boulevard in Lowertown; *Grand new buildings replacing the old worn out buildings along Wellington St. which is reconstructed into the Canadian version of Pennsylvania Avenue, with signature national buildings lining it; *Light rail criss-crosses the city, with a bustling new underground city downtown extending from its stations; *The Portrait Gallery of Canada rivals Parliament as one of the most popular destinations in the city. *The cost of energy and transportation goes critical ... You are going to see a concentration of people living in hubs that don’t require significant transportation. (more...) 21 November 2009 - Free the Falls ... and nine other projects to transform Ottawa into one of the world's great capitals By By Mohammed Adam, The Ottawa Citizen David Gordon, a widely respected urban planner, has been researching Canada's capital for more than 10 years for a book due in 18 months. He says building a great capital doesn't just happen, and it will take another 40 years for Ottawa to become one. He has put together the top 10 things the city must do to get over the hump. * Build a magnificent First Nation's Centre on Victoria Island as a monument to Canada's first people, and tell the true history of the country, which is not just French and English, but Aboriginal. *Construct at least three new bridges across the Ottawa River, one for truck traffic to get the 18-wheelers off King Edward Avenue and out of downtown. A great capital shouldn't have massive trucks barreling down its centre and causing mayhem, only a few blocks from Parliament, Gordon says. *Above all, Gordon says, the Chaudière Falls must be "freed" to wow people. "People have no idea how beautiful those falls are. A hundred years ago, there was a plume of spray from those falls you could see from 10 kilometres upstream," he says. "The Fathers of Confederation when they came to visit their new capital in 1864, were astonished by the Chaudière. It was a huge boiling kettle of falls, a mini-Niagara with a suspension bridge over it. We have to get the Chaudière back." (more...) 22 October 2009 - Ottawa: She ain't pretty, she just looks that way By Ken Gray, The Ottawa Citizen Ottawa exists in a "picturesque setting that hides disregard for the water, earth, and air that sustain us." But "...from our 21st-century environmental perspective, sadly, this is a dirty city in ways that matter." "As of late this summer, this city had poured 964 million litres of sewage and untreated storm water into the Ottawa River, more than double the year previous because of heavy rainfall, something we should expect more of as global warming continues." "The urban area of this city has about the same development density as suburban Toronto. We're just too spread out. Why? Well, because our municipal governments of the 1970s and '80s decided to jump the Greenbelt to create communities such as Barrhaven, Kanata and Orléans. The suburban model is, by definition, not particularly dense, but add the Greenbelt to the mix, plus vast open spaces and parking lots and you get an urban area that has suburban density. That's very wasteful and environmentally degrading." "...the superhighways 417, 416 and 174, plus the major arterial roads leading from the suburbs, are extended by the Greenbelt, which was created in part to protect an environmentally sensitive area. But by building suburban development across that green space, we lengthened commutes from the suburbs, which resulted in the Greenbelt causing the production of extra tonnes of greenhouse gases. Oddly, the Greenbelt's interaction with the automobile is environmentally degrading." "...an ancient Athenian quote was brought to my attention by a reader in a letter to "The Ottawa you want." "We will leave this city not only not less, but greater, better and more beautiful than it was left with us." To accomplish that, we have much to do. (more...) 4 October 2009 - Children's garden wins special design award By Maria Cook, The Ottawa Citizen Beyond an arched cedar gate in Old Ottawa East lies a luxuriant new public garden, planted with sunflowers, lavender, parsley, pumpkins, tomatoes and more. This is Ottawa’s first Children’s Garden, located at 321 Main St. at the corner of Clegg street in Robert Legget Park.The organic garden, created by community volunteers and children, has won a special jury award in the City of Ottawa’s 2009 Ottawa Urban Design Awards, presented Monday evening. “The garden is imaginative and uses delight and whimsy in defining a community space,” wrote the jurors. “This project breaks-down the barriers and professionalism in planning,” they wrote. “It involves a community taking ownership of its open space through successful engagement — a sentiment we need more of. “This project demonstrates that a park can capture the imagination of children through proper dialogue, inclusiveness and clever educational programs, without building a traditional play structure.” The awards celebrate projects built in Ottawa between September 2007 and September 2009 that exhibit urban design excellence. (more...) 27 September 2009 - City must fix 'cracks in its armour' By Kathryn May, The Ottawa Citizen Ottawa has "cracks in its economic armour" that must be fixed before mapping a vision for a new "sustainable" nation's capital into the next century, warned Rob Abbott, one of Canada's leading sustainability experts, at the region's Choosing Our Future conference. But Abbott said the time is also ripe to question whether existing institutions are up to the challenge and whether they should be reformed to deliver that vision. He worries that after all the resources put into planning, "we won't spend enough time on whether it can be done with our existing bureaucracies and governments." He said planners and politicians too often think the vision is so "captivating" that people will make the necessary changes themselves to get there. "I think we need less planning and more organizational and institutional reforms, so plans have the potential to take root," he said. "Too often we get a plan, but don't deliver. Why? I think we need to contemplate a refreshed view of what these organizations need to look like. We are in a new century, we're facing new issues, new opportunities and new risks. I think we are deluding ourselves if we think the same basic approach will allow us to prosper." (more...) 26 August 2009 - Ottawa is big on green talk, but small on results: Doucet By Patrick Dare, The Ottawa Citizen The City of Ottawa talks a big strategy about being a green city and saving the environment, but little progress has been made in the last decade, says Councillor Clive Doucet. He was reacting Tuesday to a report at city council's planning and environment committee titled Refresh the City's Environmental Strategy. That document uses inspiring phrases to describe the city's environmental vision. Goals are "a green city," "development in harmony with the environment," "a focus on walking, cycling and transit" and "clean air, water and earth." But Doucet says the strategy was created in 2003 and "nothing significant" has been done for the environment since then. (more...) 17 July 2009 - Rebates are out of style Editorial, The Ottawa Citizen '' The most clumsy way for governments to encourage green behaviour is to send out cheques to people who buy approved products. It's an approach that smacks of the haphazard, feel-good tactics of the 1990s. We ought to be able to come up with something better in 2009. Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty does deserve credit for taking action, even if that action is inefficient and outmoded. His announcement of rebates ranging from $4,000 to $10,000 for electric cars will probably get at least a few more of these cars on the road, sooner. Those are substantial rebates that might make a serious difference, especially to someone already considering an electric car. (more...) 13 July 2009 - Ottawa on track to break trail on green power By Mohammed Adam, ''The Ottawa Citizen. West Carleton farm poised to become massive solar hub. As controversies over green power projects erupt across Ontario, Ottawa is quietly leading a revolution in solar farming that will soon make the nation's capital home to one of the largest solar-energy plants of its kind in North America. A 200-acre farm in West Carleton is about to undergo a $100-million investment that will see 300,000 silvery solar panels installed there. Once this solar farm becomes operational at the end of the year, it's expected to generate about 20 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 7,000 homes during peak hours. It will be Canada's largest photovoltaic plant, one that converts sunlight directly into electricity. (more...) 4 July 2009 - Councillor offers parks for wind turbine tests By Brendan Kennedy, The Ottawa Citizen Graham Findlay may have been denied the chance to operate a small wind turbine in his backyard, but his efforts have inspired his local councillor, Kitchissippi Councillor Christine Leadman, to suggest that the city should try out small-scale wind projects in its urban parks. “I think it would really be a great opportunity if we could look at piloting something in an area where the (bylaw) variances are not going to be an issue and people can see how these things operate,” Councillor Leadman said, adding that she would like to see infrastructure money for two parks in her ward — McKellar Park and Parkdale Park — go toward renewable energy initiatives, such as wind turbines and solar panels. “Why not be innovative and start with our own facilities?” she said. (more...) 3 July 2009 - Ill-prepared for the post-oil economy By Susan Riley, The Ottawa Citizen There was a time when politicians claimed Canada would become a world leader in clean, green technologies -- that our educated workforce, abundant resources and entrepreneurial spirit, coupled with inspired government policy, would revitalize our economy and help save the planet. No one talks that way anymore. How could they, with straight faces? We have ceded leadership on climate change to U.S. President Barack Obama, and, to a lesser extent, the Europeans. It will be other countries that profit from the inevitable revolution in manufacturing, energy production and lifestyle choices that a green economy will bring. Not Canada. (more...) 3 July 2009 - Province says no to backyard wind turbine By Brendan Kennedy, The Ottawa Citizen The city’s first application to put up a small wind turbine in a residential area has been denied by the Ontario Municipal Board, and the Ottawa man behind the proposal says he is giving up the fight for his backyard power generator. “It’s an opportunity lost to try something new,” said Graham Findlay. “I guess people ran away from that opportunity out of fear — fear of the unknown.” ... Ontario’s Green Energy Act, passed May 14,2009 makes no mention of residential wind turbines such as Findlay’s. But it does say that Planning Act instruments, including zoning bylaws, will no longer apply to renewable-energy installations. (more...) 13 May 2009 - Bigger Isn't Better By Peter Victor, Special to the Ottawa Citizen ... It is time to rethink the old idea that the solution to all our problems lies in the incessant expansion of the economy. Rich countries like should explore alternatives, especially if poorer countries are to benefit from economic growth for a while in a world increasingly constrained by biophysical limits. Some deny or simply ignore these limits and argue that economic growth in rich countries is necessary to stimulate growth in poorer ones. Others say that with "green" growth we can expand economic output as we reduce the demands we place on nature through more efficient production, better designed products, fewer goods and more services, compact urban forms, and organic agriculture. While these measures may well help in a transition they are an unlikely prescription for the long term. What is required is a radical rethinking of our economies and their relation to the natural world.(more...) 16 January 2009 - Ontario's electric car infrastructure will use "cell phone" business plan By: Brian Jackson, ITBusiness.ca The Province of Ontario has partnered with a California-based company that will develop a plan to provide an infrastructure for electric cars. Instead of filling up at the pumps, drivers will be topping up batteries at "charge spots" or swapping out depleted batteries at battery replacement centres. Ontarians could soon be paying a monthly bill to power their cars with clean electricity instead of paying at the pumps to fill up on gasoline, the government revealed in an announcement yesterday. Premier Dalton McGuinty announced the Province is partnering with Palo Alto, Calif.-based Better Place LLC to create a province-wide grid that could conveniently power electric cars. Drivers will pay to charge up their car batteries in the same way they pay for their mobile phone bills – through a combination subscription-based system, and pay-per-use model. "Commuters will be able to buy miles for their car like they buy music for their iPods or minutes for their cell phones," McGuinty said at a press conference in Toronto. "That's an idea with the power to re-shape our province." (more...) Better Place is partnering with Bullfrog Power, Canada's only retailer of 100 percent green electricity, to provide all of the renewable energy needed to power the Better Place network. Watch press conference announcing the partnership by Premier McGuinty.